Transgenic mouse models of diabetes
Diabetes mellitus is a very serious metabolic disorder that is a result of insufficient insulin production, which leads to uncontrolled blood glucose levels. Insulin is a peptide hormone that has a natural tendency to misfold and possibly form aggregates. Mice and humans share very similar endocrine physiology, and mice are often used to study diabetes. However there are some slight differences that must be considered for any experiment. Humans have a single gene, INS, that encodes for insulin, whereas mice have two genes, INS1 and INS2. The presence of insulin produced from two different genes leads to minor discrepancies in common protein analytical techniques such as western blotting. There must be controls in place in order to determine between insulin coded by either the INS1 or INS2 gene. This project seeks to establish a breeding colony of mice that are missing both copies of either the INS1 or INS2 gene.
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